This weekend I’ve read a fascinating pamphlet published in 1983 by the BBC’s Education Department. Towards Computer Literacy (pdf) describes a 1982 TV series educating the general public about computers and programming, and the wider computer literacy project the BBC launched around the series.

The project included materials for schools; outreach to computer societies and clubs, further education colleges, and a host of other bodies; the establishment of a standard BBC version of the Basic programming language; and of course the development of the BBC Micro. This wildly successful home computer launched many a career in the industry, such as that of David Braben, who co-wrote Elite and is now behind the Raspberry Pi; and indeed a number of important companies including ARM Holdings (the descendant of Acorn which developed and manufactured the BBC Micro).

The people who made the BBC Micro happen, at a 2008 reunion (from Wikipedia)

The pamphlet is a fascinating read. There was a more colourful account in the BBC 4 programme The Micro Men but its focus was on Acorn. The striking thing about the project as a whole – in addition to its remarkable impact on the skills and enthusiasm of a whole generation, and on British industry – is what an extensive effort it was. It involved the co-ordination of a host of organisations and individuals, and all before we had email too. There’s an introduction by Aubrey Singer, then the Managing Director of BBC Television, which ends:

“This booklet tells the story of success in the beginning, but the real measure of it lies in the achievements of our audience in the years ahead.”

Twenty eight years later, it still looks like a story of success on this count too. Well worth a read.

PS One reason for my interest in BBC history is that I’m Vice-Chairman of the BBC Trust.

When I was a graduate student at Harvard in the early 1980s, Jeff Sachs was a relatively new assistant professor in the department, and although I never studied with him, he was an amiable and friendly figure around the Littauer Center. I’ve always had a soft spot for him as a result, while being reasonably sceptical about his recent work on development. Still, I would have read his latest book, [amazon_link id=”1847920926″ target=”_blank” ]The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics after the Fall[/amazon_link], without any hesitation were it not for a review of it by Robert Skidelsky. Actually, it’s a very favourable review. Skidelsky describes it as ‘one of the best’ books on the economic crisis. But he ends with a couple of criticisms. One concerns Sachs’s advocacy of a Gross Domestic Happiness target, and his praise for the Kingdom of Bhutan for introducing one.

Noooooooo!!!! Not again! Why do intelligent people insist on seeing as a policy model one of the world’s lowest Human Development Index and most authoritarian countries? The King of Bhutan has discovered in the pursuit of happiness policies a massively effective PR tool that distracts attention away from his failure to improve the lot of his subjects at all.

And besides, it just isn’t true that happiness isn’t related to economic growth. People are happier when they’re richer and have more to spend. Any claim to the contrary is based on a statistical error. See Chapter One of [amazon_link id=”0691145180″ target=”_blank” ]The Economics of Enough[/amazon_link] for more detail. We should hold politicians and central bankers to account for whether or not the GDP increases – they’re not doing all that well at the moment. It’s because GDP is no increasing that many of us are feeling pretty unhappy at the moment.

There are other problems with the fashion for ‘happiness’ as an economic guideline. As Skidelsky says: “[T]here are two problems with making happiness the ultimate goal of economic activity. First of all, we don’t actually know enough about what makes people happy. Perhaps everyone living to 90 will increase the sum of “life satisfaction”, perhaps not. Second, happiness is not the same as “wellbeing”, still less is it the same as “goodness”. The ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia, loosely translated as “happiness”, is an admirable and desirable state of being, not a subjective state of mind. So “clinical economics” cannot tell you either how to be happy, or why being happy is good. For the latter one needs a philosophy of the good life.”

Rant over, maybe I will still read Jeff’s book. Nonsense on happiness aside, there’s certainly a need for alternative policy ideas.

[amazon_image id=”1847920926″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall[/amazon_image]

I’ve finished [amazon_link id=”0091936969″ target=”_blank” ]The Fear Index[/amazon_link] by Robert Harris, and stand by my strong half-way-through recommendation. It’s a terrific thriller. One of the many things I enjoyed about it is the use of quotations at the start of each chapter – a great way of making at least this reader feel better-educated. They add up to an excellent little reading list about the overlaps between fear, technology, business and survival.

[amazon_link id=”0141439475″ target=”_blank” ]Frankenstein[/amazon_link] by Mary Shelley

[amazon_image id=”0141439475″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0199219222″ target=”_blank” ]On the Origin of Species[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B004TS0PQS” target=”_blank” ]The Descent of Man[/amazon_link] by Charles Darwin

[amazon_image id=”0199219222″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]On the Origin of Species (Oxford World’s Classics)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0140283110″ target=”_blank” ]Business at the Speed of Thought[/amazon_link] by Bill Gates

[amazon_image id=”0140283110″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Business at the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System (Penguin business)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0199291152″ target=”_blank” ]The Selfish Gene[/amazon_link] by Richard Dawkins

[amazon_image id=”0199291152″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary edition[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0374518203″ target=”_blank” ]Crowds and Power[/amazon_link] by Elias Canetti

[amazon_image id=”0374518203″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Crowds and Power[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”1861975139″ target=”_blank” ]Only the Paranoid Survive[/amazon_link] by Andy Grove

[amazon_image id=”1861975139″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Only The Paranoid Survive[/amazon_image]

Plus some good quotations too. Not only FDR but also Gordon Moore on Moore’s Law.

I don’t know the answer, but here are several – contradictory – pieces of evidence.

Darrell Delamaide on the attractions of self-publishing in a world of ultra-cautious conventional publishing. The broad digital highway carries new books to new audiences.

Sam Harris, taking the opposite and pessimistic view that blogging and people’s unwillingness to pay for anything much online are destroying the scope to make a living from writing. And besides, nobody wants to read anything longer than 60 pages anyhow.

The OUP offering its online platform for publishing monographs (Oxford Scholarship Online) available to other academic presses – the first batch includes Fordham University Press (Fordham Scholarship Online/FSO); The American University in Cairo Press (Cairo Scholarship Online/CSO); The University Press of Kentucky (Kentucky Scholarship Online/KSO); University Press of Florida (Florida Scholarship Online/FLASO); Hong Kong University Press (Hong Kong Scholarship Online/HKSO). Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh Scholarship Online/ESO) and Policy Press (Policy Press Scholarship Online/PPSO) are slated for March 2012. And, OUP officials say, additional presses are in talks to participate.

These come after the announcement I noted recently from Yale University Press that it will be publishing physical books derived from free online lectures.

Fascinating (at least for an economist) to watch this business evolution in action.

… is fear itself, as FDR famously said in his first inaugural address. One of the characters in Robert Harris’s new thriller, [amazon_link id=”0091936969″ target=”_blank” ]The Fear Index[/amazon_link], cites the quotation en passant. Although I’m only halfway through the book, I’ve got no hesitation in recommending it as a must-read. It’s both a page-turner and a terrific insight into modern financial markets (albeit slightly exaggerated for the purposes of creative tension). Buy it and read it now, or at least on your next plane/train journey!

[amazon_image id=”0091936969″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Fear Index[/amazon_image]

The book sent me back to FDR’s 1933 address, which makes fascinating reading in today’s context. One or two of his statements are very much of their time – for example, the intention to return people from the industrial centres to the land. But many elements could be lifted directly into any current commentary on the state of the economy. Try:

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men…..They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”

Or:

“If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well.”

I commend the whole speech to anyone who, like me, hadn’t read it in full before.